Tag: Australia

Australian Wildlife officials are investigating a suspected dog attack in Tasmania, after 58 penguins were found mauled to death. A member of the public alerted rangers to the dozens of penguin bodies strewn across a beach on the north coast of Australia's island state.

Emerging from the ice for a brief growing season every Antarctic summer, the lush green mosses of East Antarctica are finally succumbing to climate change. That is according to a study of the small, ancient and hardy plants - carried out over more than a decade.

Large numbers of emus have been flocking to an outback mining town in New South Wales as Australia continues to struggle with extreme drought. The flightless birds are desperately searching for food and water in Broken Hill, local animal rescue services say.

The worst drought in living memory is sweeping parts of eastern Australia, leaving farmers struggling to cope and asking questions about their future. Record-low rainfall in some regions and successive seasons of above-average temperatures have blighted vast tracts of Australia's grazing and crop land.

Catholic archbishop in Australia has been given a maximum sentence of 12 months in detention for concealing child sexual abuse in the 1970s. Philip Wilson, now archbishop of Adelaide, is the most senior Catholic globally to be convicted of the crime.

Australia and other anti-whaling nations are seeking a showdown with Japan as Tokyo attempts to resume commercial whaling later this year. Japanese officials have reportedly confirmed the country's attempt to alter voting rules and allow hunting of whale species with healthy numbers at an International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Brazil in September.

British defense giant BAE Systems has won a multi-million pound contract from the Australian government to build nine new warships, marking a significant victory for British military exports. BAE beat Italian and Spanish rivals to win a large slice of the £20bn spending program.

New footage of the devastating impact of plastic pollution on wildlife has been captured by a BBC team. Seabirds are starving to death on the remote Lord Howe Island, a crew filming for the BBC One documentary Drowning in Plastic has revealed. Their stomachs were so full of plastic there was no room for food.

An Australian court has found a Catholic archbishop guilty of concealing child sexual abuse. Philip Wilson, the archbishop of Adelaide ,becomes the most senior Catholic in the world to be charged and convicted of the offence. He was found to have covered up the abuse of altar boys by a pedophile priest in New South Wales in the 1970s.